Monday, October 19, 2015

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer



This is exciting. After being hyped for months, Disney teases us yet again with what is sure to be a great movie. I absolutely cannot wait for December to roll around!

8-Bit Music: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2: I Don't Want to Say Goodbye



LOOKY LOOKY I GOT A COOKIE

What If?: The End of Doctor Who

What if? It's a question we ask ourselves a lot. 'What if I win the lottery tomorrow? What if I meet the love of my life? What if the world ends tomorrow?' I'm sure you get the point. We speculate about the world and what might happen in it. It can be helpful at times to ask what if. Asking yourself and those around you what would happen if you did something. 'What if I go and help the homeless tomorrow?' That is a good what if question. However, what if can be dangerous. 'What if the person I like texts me out of the blue tomorrow professing their undying love to me?', or the ever so lovely: 'I did a bad thing and I got away with it. What if I do it again?'.

That is when what if becomes dangerous. In the first example, you get rapped up in that idea. That something will happen to you for no reason when there is no evidence supporting that it will happen. The best example I can come up with is the mirror from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. You look in the mirror, see the one thing you desire the most, and go mad with longing. The second example can be equally as bad. You did a bad thing; stole from someone, cheated, lied, etc. and didn't get caught. If you didn't get caught the first time, why would you get caught the second time? 'What if I did it again? Well, nothing. I got away with it the first time!', and the cycle goes ever downward.

I've gotten a bit off track here. What if is a very powerful question, one which can go in any number of different ways. For today's post, let's ask a very specific what if? question: What if Doctor Who were to end?

The answer is... well we don't even have to speculate. Doctor Who took a 16-year hiatus starting in 1989. At the time, the show had been loosing popularity, so it simply wasn't doing as well as it used to. The program later came back in 2005 and has stayed on until this very day.

NuWho, as the program from 2005-now is affectionately refereed to as, has been going on strong since is started. There is no sign of it stopping anytime soon. In theory, it never has to end; the Doctor could just keep regenerating and regenerating forever. However, as a great man once said, all great things must come to an end. As a fan of the show, I hope this doesn't happen for a long time. I want to be able to watch the show for many years to come. But when the show does end, I would want it to end well, with a satisfying ending that ties up any and all loose ends the show has. What if I had to write that very final season of one of (if not the) greatest science fiction show ever to be created? Well, I guess it would go a little something like this:

Pre-Ultimate Season: The Doctor has regenerated 25 times. Nearing the end of his second regeneration cycle, he knows his next regeneration will be his very last. In the last episode of this season, the 23rd Doctor (Author's Note: it would be the 23rd because of the War Doctor regeneration and David Tennant regenerating into himself) is somehow injured and regenerates into the 24th Doctor. This new Doctor sends whatever companion he has home so that he can spend the last of his life by himself. In the last moments of that episode, the Doctor scans his body for any anomalies. The screen blinks red and displays these words: VORTEX SICKNESS. The Doctor, now in tears, says: "I have less time than I thought." and the last episode ends.

The Final Season: In the last episode of last season, the newly regenerated Doctor finds out he has Vortex Sickness, a rare condition among Time Lords that is the result of either traveling too much throughout time and other universes or spending too much time in or near a TARDIS or anything else that has a direct connection to the Time Vortex. The Doctor, spending most of his extremely long life in his TARDIS, has traveled through time a lot, more than any other living thing in existence. Vortex Sickness is basically your soul being sucked into the Time Vortex. The Doctor will slowly loose his memories and other skills until, ultimately, his atoms separate and he fades into the Time Vortex. Calculations predict that he has about 10 years to live. Knowing that traveling in time, or even being in his TARDIS will shorten his lifespan, the Doctor goes back to Gallifry in the first episode, where the Time Lords tell him that there really isn't any hope, as the only way to cure Vortex Sickness would be to separate the Doctor from the Time Vortex, which is impossible as the very fabric of the universe is made up of the Time Vortex.
        The Doctor decides that he is not going to spend his life stuck at Gallifry being bored until he denigrates. So, over the course of 22 episodes, the Doctor takes his greatest enemies and traps them in the literally inescapable dimension Insanitarium. Every single Dalek, Cybermen, Silence, all of the Doctor's strongest foes are trapped there, bringing peace to the universe.
        This shortens the the Doctor's lifespan, as he has had to travel in the TARDIS to trap the monsters in Insanitarium. The 24th episode of the season and the last one in the series takes the Doctor back to Gallifry before the Time War broke out, where he meets a young Time Lord named Metus. The Doctor, recognizing this Time Lord but not sure where he met him, takes him on a ride in the TARDIS. Something in the Doctor tells him to speak to Metus about how there is more to the universe than just Gallifry; that Metus can have amazing adventures like the Doctor did.
        The TARDIS lands on Earth in 2014. Metus falls in love with Earth and it's people. He had never been here before, and absolutely adores it. The Doctor tells Metus of some of the adventures he's had on Earth, even though he can remember only a few and the details of those stories are fading quickly. The Doctor realizes that he doesn't have much time left and needs to get Metus back to Gallifry.
        The TARDIS lands on Gallifry, and the Doctor begins to expel regeneration energy, as the process of dying from Vortex Sickness is almost like regenerating in reverse. Metus, who thinks the Doctor is regenerating, goes up to the Doctor to ask him why he's regenerating. He gets right into the Doctor's face too, which triggers the Doctor's memory about Metus. "I know you. I know how I know you." The Doctor says as he's dying. "How do you know me, Doctor? We've never met before." Metus replies. "You'll know who I am soon enough. Now, promise me something." the Doctor says, painfully. The Doctor asks Metus to never give in. To never be cruel or cowardly. The Doctor begs this of Metus, who says yes, that he will never give in, or be cruel or cowardly. Metus leaves the TARDIS, walking straight out the door, and watches as it just fades away. Not in and out as the TARDIS normally disappears, but it just silently fades out. And with that, the Doctor is gone.
        Metus is mesmerized by Earth and absolutely has to go back. He ends up stealing a TARDIS right from under the Time Lord's noses and taking it to Earth with his small granddaughter, landing in 1950's London. As he lands, Metus figures that he is going to need an Earth name to fit in, so he tries to translate his own into any language from Earth.
        Metus looks at the monitor, amazed at the result his TARDIS gives him, which happens to be in English. Metus sees this and realizes that it must mean something: that he was going to do some amazing things.
        Metus is a Gallifrian word, and when translated into English, it means doctor.

What if? What if the BBC sees this and adapts it for the very, very last season of Doctor Who? What if the show ends in 150 years and I don't get to see how it ends? What if it ends very differently than the manner depicted here? What if they just cancel the show after Series 9, just like they did in 1989, and no one gets a satisfying ending? I honestly don't know.

This ending might not be great for you, personally. But for me, with a much, much more fleshed out final product, I would be extremely happy with this ending. It comes full circle and ties up any loose ends the show has. Isn't that all we can ask for in an ending, whether it be the end of a TV show or the end of something much greater and more significant?

Endings are inevitable. We can't stop them from happening, because that itself would be an ending, an ending to endings of sorts. Great things, bad things, thoughts, opinions, and other dull things, all of it has to stop somewhere. Otherwise no question would ever end, and neither would any answer. Death and life would both be eternal. No, every sentence has a period, every show has a finale, every life has it's death, and every story has it's ending. We must do what we can before we come upon our own finales.

But we can dream. We can hope and believe. We can weave our own stories. Every sentence has it's capital letter, every show has it's premiere, every death begins in life, and every story has it's beginning. Even this blog post has a beginning.

We asked a simple question. We asked the question that allows us to dream and hope and believe. We asked the question that we use to weave stories and tell tales. The question of imagination, those simple two words with a question mark at the end that can birth something beautiful and amazing and wonderful or dark and scary and evil. The question of storytellers, playwrights and people everywhere was the one we asked.

We asked: What if?

Friday, October 16, 2015

Update: I Lied Before But Now I'm Back (no really)

The first Fazbear Project teaser
The second Fazbear Project teaser
So I have been gone for awhile. I haven't updated this in a bit, but I am back, and better than ever. The Fazbear Project is coming along, I'll be it slowly. It is definitely the biggest story I have ever put to paper, and by far the most complicated. It is coming along.

As you can see by my earlier posts this month, I am also updating my YouTube channel! I plan on putting more stuff on there as well as this blog.

I'm going to be redoing the blog a little bit now. Don't know exactly what I'll do next.
But the color scheme as it is is alittle too
Halloween for my taste as a year round thing.
Alright, I'll be back!

The Commercial That Changed My Life

Commercials are everywhere. Whether on T.V or on YouTube, we all see at least a couple every single day. Most people don't like commercials, and it's understandable why; we want to watch a show or movie and semi-frequent breaks throughout filled with ads can get a bit annoying. Sometimes the commercials vacuum cleaners or car dealerships, but sometimes the commercials we see are for video games.

The year is 2010. I was 8 years old at the time, and had just gotten a DSi for Christmas. I was just sitting by the T.V one day, watching a show on Cartoon Network (I can't remember for the life of me what show it was) when the commercials came out. I, being young and bored, went into the other room to play with something else until the show came back on. When I walked back into the room, the commercial that changed my life began to play.

It was a commercial for Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver. I had never even heard of the Pokemon series before then. It seemed fascinating to me. There were these tiny monsters following a kid my age around a city. I had never seen anything like it! What really caught my interest back then was the fact that the game came out on my birthday. That sold it for me; I had to get this game!

I went up to my mother and told me that I wanted the game. When she asked me which one, I said I wanted HeartGold. 'Gold is better than silver.' my young, naive mind reasoned. A couple of days latter, she told me she had pre-ordered SoulSilver, I was a bit disappointing, but I really didn't care.

So the day finally rolled around. My 9th birthday, March 14th 2010. My mother held out her hand and showed me the game. I popped it in my DSi before we even left the Walgreen's parking lot where we were at. I loved the game just as much as I thought I would. It took about a month or so, but I finished the first half of the game, playing it as often as I could.

That Pokemon game was the start of my long time love of the series. It has truly shaped my life and interests in a way I never imaged it would. One example is the avatar I use on most of my accounts on the Internet. It is a picture of my Minecraft skin, which is the player from Pokemon SoulSilver. My favorite color is silver. It's odd how many things it influenced in my life.

I said earlier that I originally wanted Pokemon HeartGold instead of SoulSilver, however it only took a couple of hours of playing SoulSilver that made me realize how wrong I was. It has become one of my favorite games of all time, but I would have never seen it had it not been for that commercial coming on at that exact time.

A minute long commercial, seemingly so small and insignificant, changed my life forever. I probably would have gotten into the Pokemon series at some point anyway, but it would have been much later in my life had it not not been for that small advertisement.

That is the message in this post: it's the small things. The little things change your life. The big things change your life too, of course, but we all see that coming. No, the small things that we don't expect to change anything can, and sometimes will, change everything. Don't disregard something due to its seeming insignificance. It might be a walk in the park, or a drive down a street you had never been down before. Or, in some odd cases, it might be a commercial for a Pokemon game.

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

8-Bit Music: Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald - Title Screen





It's been awhile!

I have a series on YouTube called 8-Bit Music. I haven't updated it since the first of the year, but I'm back. I plan on updating the blog more, and my channel. But for now, just check this out!